separate, and as a consequence soon succumb to the energy of the
housemaid’s broom. Good work of this class is to be found at
Petworth; Trinity College, Oxford; Trinity College, Cambridge;
St Paul’s cathedral; St James’, Piccadilly; and many other
London churches.
During the reigns of Louis XIV and XV. the principal merit of carved design, i.e. its appropriateness and suitability, gradually disappeared. Furniture was often carved in a way hardly legitimate. The legs, the rails of tables and chairs, the frames of cabinets, of looking-glasses, instead of being first made for construction and strength, and then decorated, were first designed to carry cherubs' heads and “rococo” (i.e. rock and shell ornament), quite regardless of utility or convenience. A wealth of such mistaken design was also applied to state carriages, to say nothing of bedsteads and other furniture. However, the wall panelling of the mansions of the rich, and sometimes the panelling of furniture, was decorated with rococo design in its least illegitimate form. The main part of the wood surface would be left plain, while the centre would be carved with a medallion surrounded by foliage, vases or trophies of torches and musical instruments, &c., or perhaps the upper part of the panel would be thus treated. France led the fashion, which was more or less followed all over Europe. In England gilt chairs in the style of Louis XV. were made in some quantities. But Thomas Chippendale, Ince and Mayhew, Sheraton, Johnson, Heppelwhite and other cabinet-makers did not as a rule use much carving in their designs. Scrolls, shells, ribbon, ears of corn, &c., in very fine relief, were, however, used in the embellishment of chairs, &c., and the claw and ball foot was employed as a termination to the cabriole legs of cabinets and other furniture.
The mantelpieces of the 18th century were as a rule carved in pine and painted white. Usually the shelves were narrow and supported by pilasters often of flat elliptic plan, sometimes by caryatids, and the frieze would consist of a raised centre panel carved with a classic scene in relief, or with a mask alone, and on either side a swag of flowers, fruit and foliage.
Interior doorways were often decorated with a broken pediment more or less ornate, and a swag of foliage commonly depended from either side over a background of scroll work. The outside porches so often seen in Queen Anne houses were of a character peculiar to the 18th century. A small platform or curved roof was supported by two large and heavy brackets carved with acanthus scroll work. The staircases were as a rule exceedingly good. Carved and pierced brackets were fixed to the “open strings” (i.e. the sides of the steps), giving a very pretty effect to the graceful balustrade of turned and twisted columns.
Renaissance figure work calls for little comment. During the 16th century many good examples were produced—those priestly statues in the museum of Sens for example. But the figure work used in the decoration of cabinets, &c., seldom rose above the ordinary level. In the 18th century cherubs' heads were fashionable and statuettes were sometimes carved in boxwood as ornaments, but as a means of decorating houses wood sculpture ceased to be. The Swiss, however, have kept up their reputation for animal sculpture to the present day, and still turn out cleverly carved chamois and bears, &c.; as a rule the more sketchily cut the better the merit. Their more ambitious works, their groups of cows, &c., sometimes reach a high level of excellence.
Of the work of the 19th century little can be said in praise. Outside and beyond the present-day fashion for collecting old oak there seems to be no demand for carved decoration. In church work a certain number of carvers find occupation, as also for repairs or the production of imitations. But the carving one is accustomed to see in hotels or on board the modern ocean palace is in the main the work of the machine. There is no objection to the machine in itself, as it only grounds out and roughly models the design which is finished by hand. Its fatal drawback is that it is of commercial value only when a large number of panels of the same pattern are turned out at the same time. It is this repetition which takes away the life of good work, which places that gulf between the contract job and the individual effort of the artist. The price of all labour has so greatly increased, to build a house is so much more expensive than it was before the days of the trades union that none but the very rich can afford to beautify their home in the way to which our forefathers were accustomed.
Coptic.—In the early medieval period, screens and other fittings were produced for the Coptic churches of Egypt by native Christian workmen. In the British Museum there is a set of ten small cedar panels from the church door of Sitt Miriam, Cairo (13th century). The six sculptured figure panels are carved in very low relief and the four foliage panels are quite Oriental in character, intricate and fine both in detail and finish. In the Cairo Museum there is much work treated after the familiar Arab style, while other designs are quite Byzantine in character. The figure work is not of a very high order.
Mohammedan Work.—Nothing can exceed the skill with which the Moslem wood-carvers of Persia, Syria, Egypt and Spain designed and executed the richest panelling and other decorations for wall linings, ceilings, pulpits and all kinds of fittings and furniture. The mosques and private houses of Cairo, Damascus and other Oriental cities are full of the most elaborate and minutely delicate woodwork. A favourite style of ornament was to cover the surface with very intricate interlacing patterns, formed by finely moulded ribs; the various geometrical spaces between the ribs were then filled in with small pieces of wood carved with foliage in slight relief. The use of different woods such as ebony or box, inlaid so as to emphasize the design, combined with the ingenious richness of the patterns, give this class of woodwork an almost unrivalled splendour of effect. Carved ivory is also often used for the filling in of the spaces. The Arabs are past masters in the art of carving flat surfaces in this way. A gate in the mosque of the sultan Bargoug (Cairo, 14th century) well illustrates this appreciation of lines and surfaces. The pulpit or mimbar (15th century) from a Cairo mosque, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is also a good example in the same style, the small spaces in this case being filled in with ivory carved in flat relief.
Screens made up of labyrinths of complicated joinery, consisting of multitudes of tiny balusters connecting hexagons, squares or other forms, with the flat surfaces constantly enriched with small carvings, are familiar to every one. In Cairo we also have examples in the mosque of Qous (12th century) of that finely arranged geometrical interlacing of curves with foliage terminations which distinguishes the Saracenic designer. Six panels in the Victoria and Albert Museum (13th century; Plate II. fig. 5), and work on the tomb of the sultan El Ghoury (16th century), show how deeply this form of decoration was ingrained in the Arab nature. Figure work and animals were sometimes introduced, in medieval fashion, as in the six panels just referred to, and at the hôpital du Moristan (13th century) and the mosque of El Nesfy Qeyçoun (14th century). There is a magnificent panel on the door of Beyt-el-Emyr. This exquisite design is composed of vine leaves and grapes of conventional treatment in low relief. The Arab designer was fond of breaking up his panelling in a way reminding one of a similar Jacobean custom. The main panel would be divided into a number of hexagonal, triangular or other shapes, and each small space filled in with conventional scroll work. Much of this simple flat design reminds one of that Byzantine method from which the Elizabethan carvers were inspired.
Persia.—The Persian carvers closely followed Arab design. A pair of doors of the 14th century from Samarkand (Victoria and Albert Museum) are typical. Boxes, spoons and other small articles were often fretted with interlacing lines of Saracenic character, the delicacy and minuteness of the work requiring the utmost patience and skill. Many of the patterns remind one of the sandalwood work of Madras, with the difference that the Persians were satisfied with a much lower relief. Sometimes a very beautiful result was obtained by the sparing use of fretted lattice pattern among foliage. A fine panel of the 14th century in the Victoria and Albert Museum shows how active was Arab influence even as far as Bokhara.
India and Burma.—Throughout the great Indian peninsula wood-carving of the most luxurious kind has been continuously produced for many centuries. The ancient Hindu temples were decorated with doors, ceilings and various fittings carved in teak and other woods with patterns of extreme richness and minute elaboration. We have architectural remains from Kashmir Smats (Punjab) dating from the 3rd or 4th century, the patterns employed being of a bold and decorative character strongly resembling the best Elizabethan design. The doors of the temple of Somnath, on the north-west coast, were famed for their magnificence and were highly valued as sacred relics. In 1024 they were carried off to Ghazni by the Moslem conqueror. Sultan Mahmud, and are now lying at the fort at Agra. The gates which now exist are very fine specimens of ancient wood-carving, but are probably only copies of the original very early doors. The Asiatic carver, like certain of his European brethren, is apt to be carried away by his own enthusiasm and to overcrowd his surfaces. Many a door, column, gallery or even a whole house-front is covered with the most intricate design bewildering to behold (Bhera, Shahpur). But this is not always the case, and the Oriental is at times more restrained in his methods. Architectural detail is to be seen with only a simple enrichment carved round the framing, producing the happiest result. The Hindu treatment of the circle is often exceedingly good, and might perhaps less rarely inspire western design. Sometimes native work strongly resembles Scandinavian of the 12th century. The scrolls are designed on the same lines, and foliage and flowers (beyond elementary buds) are not employed (Burma, 17th century, Victoria and Albert Museum). The pierced work of Bombay calls for note. Foliage, fruit and flowers are constantly adapted to a scheme of fret-cut decoration for doors or windows as well as the frames of chairs and the edges of tables. A reference should also be made to those wonderful sandalwood tables, cabinets and boxes to be seen in Southern India, always covered with design, often with scores of figures and monsters with every space filled in with the minutest decoration. Many of the gong stands of Burma show the highest skill, the arrangement of two figures bearing a pole from which a gong hangs is familiar. The Burmese are sculptors of proved merit.
China and Japan.—In these countries the carver is unrivalled for deftness of hand. Grotesque and imitative work of the utmost perfection is produced, and many of the carvings of these countries, Japan in particular, are beautiful works of art, especially when the carver copies the lotus, lily or other aquatic plant. A favourite form of decoration consists of breaking up the architectural surfaces, such as ceilings, friezes, &c., into framed squares and filling up each
